Canning Altitude by Canadian City (Find Your Band)

If you live anywhere above about 305 metres in Canada, the processing time printed in a canning recipe isn’t enough on its own — water boils cooler where you are, so you add time (water-bath) or pressure (pressure canning). This page is the quick lookup: find your city, read the minutes. For how and why it works, see the main altitude-adjustments guide.

Bernardin’s water-bath table

Elevation	Add to processing time
0 – 305 m	Nothing — use the recipe time as printed
306 – 915 m	+5 minutes
916 – 1,830 m	+10 minutes
1,831 – 2,440 m	+15 minutes
2,441 – 3,050 m	+20 minutes

In practice, only the first three rows apply in Canada. The highest city we list below is Lake Louise at about 1,540 m, well inside the 10-minute band. The bottom two rows exist because Bernardin’s table does; you are unlikely to ever need them here.

Add nothing (0–305 m)

Most Canadians live here. Use the recipe’s base time as printed.

• Vancouver (4 m) · Victoria (19 m) · Terrace (217 m)
• Ottawa (114 m) · Toronto (173 m) · Sault Ste. Marie (192 m) · Thunder Bay (199 m) · Barrie (295 m)
• Trois-Rivières (61 m) · Québec City (74 m) · Montréal (82 m) · Chicoutimi (166 m) · Sherbrooke (241 m)
• Fredericton (20 m) · Moncton (71 m) · Saint John (109 m) · St. John’s (141 m) · Halifax (145 m) · Charlottetown (49 m)
• Winnipeg (239 m)
• Iqaluit (34 m) · Inuvik (68 m) · Yellowknife (206 m)

Also here, from Natural Resources Canada / Statistics Canada figures rather than Bernardin’s chart: Hamilton (~100 m) · Kingston (~93 m) · Windsor (~190 m) · London, ON (~250 m) · Sudbury (~270 m).

Add 5 minutes (306–915 m)

Southern Saskatchewan, the BC interior valleys, and most of Alberta.

• Kamloops (345 m) · Kelowna (429 m) · Prince George (691 m)
• North Bay (370 m) · Kenora (409 m)
• Brandon, MB (409 m)
• Saskatoon (503 m) · Regina (577 m) · Swift Current (817 m)
• Vermillion, AB (617 m) · Medicine Hat (716 m) · Edmonton (723 m) · Red Deer (904 m)
• Dawson (370 m) · Whitehorse (703 m)

From NRCan / StatCan figures: Prince Albert, SK (~430 m) · Penticton, BC (~344 m) · Vernon, BC (~390 m) · Grande Prairie, AB (~669 m).

Red Deer is the one to watch. At 904 m it is 12 metres below the 916 m line. If your part of town sits a little higher than the official figure, take the 10-minute band instead.

Add 10 minutes (916–1,830 m)

Southern Alberta and the Rocky Mountain towns.

• Lethbridge (928 m) · Calgary (1,084 m)

From NRCan / StatCan figures: Cranbrook, BC (~940 m) · Canmore (~1,309 m) · Banff (~1,383 m) · Lake Louise (~1,540 m).

So a jam recipe that says “process 10 minutes” runs for 20 minutes in Calgary. That is a doubling, and it is not optional.

Where these elevations come from

Cities in bold without a note are Bernardin’s own published elevations, which is what makes them line up exactly with Bernardin’s bands. The handful marked NRCan / StatCan aren’t on Bernardin’s chart, so we used federal elevation data instead — near a band boundary, treat those as approximate and round up.

If your town isn’t listed at all, look up your elevation and read it off the table at the top. When you’re close to a boundary, use the higher band — a few extra minutes is never the unsafe choice.

Pressure canning is different

Everything above is for water-bath canning, where altitude adds time. For pressure canning, altitude adds pressure, not time — and the band boundaries are different ones. A weighted-gauge canner uses 10 lb (69 kPa) up to 305 m and 15 lb (103 kPa) above. A dial gauge steps at 610 m, 1,220 m, 1,829 m and 2,439 m. See the main altitude guide for both tables, and your canner’s manual.

Next steps

• Canning altitude adjustments for Canada — how and why the bands work, plus the pressure tables
• US to Canadian canning conversions — feet-to-metres and more
• Water-bath canning pillar — the full method